


brother, can you spare a dime

by Ataraxetta, checkthemargins



Series: these hands made of splinters [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Angst, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Minor original character deaths, Violence, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1602836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ataraxetta/pseuds/Ataraxetta, https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkthemargins/pseuds/checkthemargins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Pierce is what man made him. He and the asset have that in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	brother, can you spare a dime

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little POV piece exploring possible Alexander Pierce backstory, including how he was introduced tot he asset The Winter Solder. In the same universe as my fic Able-Bodied Men. Please heed the warnings about the OC deaths, as it includes an attack wherein children are casualties.
> 
> Special thanks to Nika, who held my hand and actually wrote a line of this, as well as betaing, and Ella for the second look through.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I don't own Marvel or Captain America or any of its characters/premises/settings. This is just for kicks. Title is fromSeries title is from a Murder By Death song. Title is a Bing Crosby song.

**brother, can you spare a dime**

Alex walks home from school at a trudge, the sun burning hot on the back of his neck and a hollow feeling in his chest that's been there for weeks. He's given their driver the slip again. His mother doesn't like his uncle Jed, and Henry is under strict instructions not to take Alex to the factory. This way Henry won't get in trouble with her, Alex will, and it's his birthday; she won't be angry with him for too long. He resituates the school bag on his shoulder and turns one corner, and then another and crosses the line into Ocean Park.

The neighborhood is made of wood and burlap, and no one really lives here. The houses aren't real, and neither are the cars parked on the streets and the laundry lines don't belong to anyone. It's all a trick. The house in the very middle has two men sitting on the front stoop. They're dressed in regular clothes, but that's a trick too. When they see Alex approaching they smile.

"Hey kid, you know you're not supposed to be here," says one of them, Kenny, who's big and tall and has an easy smile.

"It's my birthday," Alex says stubbornly.

Kenny and the other man—Isaac—share a look, and then Kenny stands up to open the door for him. "Just this once," he says, but that's a lie. Alex usually gets his way.

The factory is loud and full of people and there are half-finished airplanes below but he's not allowed to go down there. Instead he makes his way through the big lobby and sneaks past his uncles secretary, who looks harassed at her desk, and slips into the big office behind her.

His uncle looks up, spectacles over his tired eyes. He has red hair and a crooked smile that makes the hollow feeling in Alex's chest bigger.

"You're a menace, you know that?" says he says. Alex makes a face at him and he makes one right back. Alex snorts and puts his school things down, sitting down in his usual chair in front of the desk. Uncle Jed gives him a look.

"I'm a man now," says Alex.

"You've been eleven for all of twelve hours and you're a man now?"

"Yep," says Alex, popping the p. Uncle Jed laughs and pushes his chair back, opening a drawer and rummaging around in it until he pulls out a neatly wrapped box. He hands it to Alex, who opens it to find a big pocket watch. It's hard to open and the glass is cracked over the face, and on the opposite side there's an old photograph of his father and his grandmother and Uncle Jed. He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat, thumbing over the picture carefully. He looks a lot like his dad.

"That was your granddad's," says Uncle Jed. "Don't mean much, but he always liked it. Your dad's had it for years. He wanted me to give it to you after he shipped out."

Alex nods numbly. "I miss him."

"I know, kid," says Uncle Jed.

Alex kicks his foot idly against the front of the desk. On the wall behind the desk there's a framed picture of Uncle Jed and Mr. Douglas with Captain America and Bucky Barnes in front of a half-complete aircraft at the other factory abroad from when Uncle Jed traveled on business to London eight months ago. He wonders if maybe his dad has met the captain abroad, too, as a soldier instead of a businessman like his uncle.

"I wish I was old enough to fight," he says.

Uncle Jed looks at him for a long time, and then puts his pen down and folds his hands on his desk. Alex is still clutching the watch. Uncle Jed looks very serious. "Why do you want to fight?"

Alex frowns. "Because I want to win the war."

"Any other reason?"

"Isn't that enough?"

His uncle gives a little laugh. "You don't even know what this war is about."

"We're fighting the Nazis, and Japan." says Alex. "Captain America is fighting the Nazis."

"But why?"

Alex shrugs. "Because they're bad people."

"You can't just label human beings as bad people, kid. You need to make up your own mind. You need to understand why they deserve to be called bad people.

"They're..." Alex tries to remember what he's learned in school, the parts that haven't got mixed up with his comic books. "They're killing people."

"You think our boys aren't killing people over there? Isn't that what you want to do?" Uncle Jed asks. "Go and kill Nazis?"

"It's different," says Alex. Uncle Jed is so frustrating sometimes. "Captain America is protecting people. He's fighting for...for..." 

"Freedom," says Uncle Jed, when Alex can't think of the right word. "For all people, everywhere. That's what your dad is fighting for too. That's why we want to win the war, Alex. A man has stood up and decided that he knows what's best for everyone else, and he's decided that he has the right to tell people who they are and if they matter and if they deserve to live at all."

"Everyone is equal," Alex says fiercely. It's what he's always been taught, by his mother and father and uncle and grandmother and grandfather. Men and women and children of all cultures and ways of life. Not everyone thinks like that, but they're wrong, and Alex has never been shy about telling them that. 

"Exactly," Uncle Jed says. "War isn't something to strive for. We don't want to fight, but sometimes we have to. We just want to protect our freedom."

 

 

When Alex is twenty-nine, he attends the swearing in ceremony of the first Prime Minister of a small country in South America called San Prudencio, long under a brutal dictatorship and torn apart by guerilla warfare. He's spent the last three years of his life here, mediating, advising, giving aid in peaceful efforts to found a democracy, reparations to a war-torn country and its people. It's been incredibly humbling, exhausting, heart-wrenching and rewarding by turns.

The newly elected Prime Minister, Francisca Silva, one of the most frustrating and remarkable women that Alex has ever met, has chosen to be sworn into office not at the capital but at a school. It is children, she said, more than any other that should bear witness to this first step toward peace. Alex has never felt so in awe, so fulfilled as a person to be a part of something so incredible.

Before the swearing in, a young teenager girl takes the podium, and she speaks of how much this means to her country, and herself, how grateful she is to have been able to witness a woman standing up to lead her country, how much hope she has for the future of San Prudencio and for the world at large, and she's so passionate. Her words speak to Alex in ways he wasn't aware anything could; he realizes acutely, that this really is what he wants to spend his life working for, that this makes everything else worth it, that he's committed to this life even if he will never achieve more than give a child hope for a better future. That alone makes it worth it.

And then, despite every painstakingly designed security measure taken, the girl's speech comes to an abrupt halt between one word and the next when a bullet rips through her middle, and directly into the chest of the Prime Minister standing three paces behind her.

There are seconds of pure, horrible silence before all hell breaks loose. An explosion blows a hole through the wall of the auditorium and several men filter in gun first and open fire. 

Alex takes a shot in the chest, and he wakes up in D.C. twelve days later, where his older brother takes his hand and tells him that that the leader of the terrorist organization has taken power. Public executions are ongoing. Two hundred and twelve people died the day of the attack and fifty-one of them were children.

He destroys his hospital room, shouts himself hoarse, and jars his wounds so badly he nearly has to have surgery again. It takes seven people to restrain him and by that point he's crying so hard he can barely see. There's a pinprick in his arm and then silence.

Three days later, an old balding man in a nice suit with a wooden cane walks into his room and takes a seat in the chair next to his bed. When he speaks, his accent is German.

"Hello, Mr. Pierce."

Alex nods curtly. He's had a string of visitors, friends of his family that he doesn't remember, but this one is acutely unfamiliar. "I don't believe we've met."

"No, no," his visitor says, propping his folded hands on his cane. "Not properly, but I have been watching you for quite some time."

Alex frowns deeply. It hurts his chest still to talk much. "I don't understand."

"Your name is Alexander Clifford Pierce, born in Santa Monica, California in 1933 to a very affluent family. Your father lost his life in the war and you were raised by your mother and your Uncle Jedidiah, an engineer and, I believe, your mentor. You are a Rhodes Scholar, received a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School and your Ph.D. in sociology. You've since dedicated yourself to _'...preserving the rights and equality of people. All people, everywhere._ "

"That's from my dissertation. Who are you?"

His visitor tilts his head, thick glasses sliding down his nose. "Mr. Pierce, I came here to offer my condolences, for what happened in San Prudencio, and to talk to you about a very important opportunity."

"Why?" Alex asks. He feels exhausted, angry, helpless, and this mystery guest isn't doing anything for his mood.

"You are young, ambitious, clever. You show great potential for leadership. You dream of a better world, Mr. Pierce. A world where things like what happened in South America do not, and cannot, exist. I want to offer you an opportunity in an organization that I believe, now more than ever, will afford you some peace in the wake of this terrible tragedy."

Alex stares at him for a long time. "Who are you?" he asks again.

"Ah, yes, where are my manners?" The old man smiles kindly, and offers his hand to shake. "It's very nice to finally meet you, Mr. Pierce. My name is Dr. Arnim Zola."

 

 

The first person Alex Pierce kills is the first-born son of Sebastián Morales, former leader of an extremist organization in San Prudencio, now its Prime Minister in name, dictator in practice. In the next half hour, still shaking, he signs his name to a contract that he had drawn up, promising money and guns to Morales's regime in exchange for loyalty and unfettered access to certain persons of interest under his command.

"Mataste a mi hijo," Morales says. His voice hoarse and his tears stain the paper. Alex lifts an eyebrow. Revenge is not a part of the cause he's decided to dedicate himself to, but this one indiscretion he's allowed himself. One year ago this man ruined his life.

"She was my friend," he says, "and a woman whose shit you aren't fit to feast on, frankly. Sign the paper."

Morales does. Alex's guard puts the contract into a file and into Alex's briefcase, and Alex stands up, straightening his suit jacket.

"That is all?" Morales says.

"That's it," says Alex. He closes his case. "Hail Hydra."

"Hail Hydra," Morales is obligated to hiss back.

Alex side-steps the body on his way out, and throws up in the bathroom on the plane on the way home.

The next time is a little easier, and the time after that. He can't exactly call that progress, but he's a man at war, fighting for freedom.

 

 

A month or so after becoming Secretary of Defense for the United States, Alex follows Dr. Zola into an underground facility in east D.C.

Several years ago, leadership of Hydra passed into Alex's hands while Dr. Zola began work on what he called a humanity-saving algorithm that would, when the world was ready, ensure peace on a global level. It's impressive work, but rather over Alex's head on a mathematical level, and he hasn't been able to contribute much and therefore hasn't seen the doctor in quite some time. He looks far more ill and weak than the last time Alex saw him. Dr. Zola was diagnosed with liver cancer three years ago. He's lived longer than anyone expected him to, but he's in his last months now. There's a young nurse pushing Dr. Zola's wheelchair down an impossibly long arched stone corridor, and they're flanked by two armed guards. It's after three in the morning.

"With all due respect, Doctor, I don't suppose you could give me a hint as to what I'm doing here. My daughter's senior award ceremony is tomorrow."

"Ah, Celeste?"

"No, my eldest, Celia. Celeste is only ten."

"Too many C-E-Ls, Alexander," says Zola. "You confuse an old man with them."

"I do try," Alex says, amused.

"Ms. Resznik was telling me yesterday that there is a problem in eastern Europe that is giving you some trouble," Zola says, looking up at him. What's left of his hair is very white, tufting at his ears.

"Yeah," Alex answers. "A king threatening our interests. The royal line needs to be eliminated."

"Mm," Zola nods commiseratingly. "I think I may be able to help."

"You usually are."

Zola hums his agreement. "Several years ago I developed a project to solve these sorts of problems. It was very successful. Over the years, with advances in technology, it has become even more so. I believe that as time goes on it will continue to grow and flourish. I would like to show you, and hand over command to you."

"I appreciate the thought, but upgrading your project might be beyond me. I'm not much of a scientist."

"That part you will not have to worry about. My protege, Dr. Zhidkov, will be reporting to you. He's been with me for quite some time now. He knows the asset better, in fact, than I do. He's very loyal to our cause."

"The asset?"

They're coming upon the end of the corridor and a guarded steel door, which is opened for them at once. They step into what looks like a bank vault. One of their guards unlocks the cage, and Dr. Zola is wheeled in and through the armored door beyond, where three scientists in lab coats and another two guards away. It's surprisingly well-lit and roomy, with a workbench all along one side wall with a two-way mirror above it, an exam table with retractable metal restraints and an odd-looking contraption looming menacingly above what looks like a dentist chair. There's another closed door off to the side and next to it is a huge metal box hooked into the wall and a big monitor next to it. The box has a large window, slightly frosted around the edges, revealing a man's upper body.

"The asset," says Dr. Zola, gesturing to the cryo chamber, and then to a man maybe ten years older than Alex with grizzled dark hair cut short and a broad body. He looks more soldier than scientist. "This is Dr. Grigory Zhidkov."

"Hello," says Dr. Zhidkov in a heavy Russian accent. He shakes Alex's hand. "Very good to meet you."

"And you," Alex says. "May I?"

"Certainly, Mr. Secretary."

Alex approaches the cryo chamber warily, frowning at the strange familiarity of the face frozen inside. He edges to the side so he can see better past the glare of the fluorescent lights. There's something about the long eyelashes, and the shape of the mouth. When it comes to him it's like a punch to the gut. He looks around at the doctors. "Is this who I think it is?"

Zola and Zhidkov exchange a look, and then Zola offers Alex a wry smile. "It is no one."

"Bullshit," says Alex. "I've been looking at that face since I was a kid. My uncle had a picture of him above his desk for years. That's Bucky Barnes. You cryo froze Bucky Barnes?"

"James Buchanan Barnes fell to his death in nineteen forty-five," Zola explains. He has a proud, manic look on his face.

"He doesn't look so dead," Alex says.

Dr. Zola smiles again. "Did you know, Mr. Pierce, that Sergeant Barnes and I had met during the war?"

"Can't say that I did," says Alex.

Zola smiles. "In forty-three, at Hydra headquarters in Austria. I had been attempting to create a serum that would replicate the effects of Dr. Abraham Erskine's, who as you know created Captain America. I am admittedly not as smart as Erskine was, nor was my expertise in biology or genetics. The serum I created was not as refined, nor did we have the technology required to enhance muscle mass and strength quite so extensively, but we did have the tesseract."

"I was under the impression that was too volatile for humans."

Zola nods. "Quite. Several subjects died. Sergeant Barnes was the only man who survived its introduction to his system. What I discovered is that it introduced a certain mutation of the cells that--"

Alex holds up a hand to cut him off. "In plain English, please."

Dr. Zola pushes his glasses up his nose from where they've slid down. "He does not age, and he cannot die."

Alex stares at the doctors, incredulous. "He can't die."

"He survived a fall of nearly three hundred meters. Every organ in his body was injured, every bone broken when my men found him. He was still conscious. We have not tested everything, of course, but excluding beheading him, I feel it is safe to assume that he would be nearly impossible to kill."

"Your men found him?" Alex asks. There's so much that's hard to believe, but over the last twenty years he's learned to roll with the punches.

"He fell during a mission under Captain America's command to detain me. Before I was captured, I gave the order to have him collected."

"You already knew he would survive?"

Zola shrugs. "I had hope. I had been very thorough in my experimentation during our time together in Austria." There's bile rising in Alex's throat and his stomach flips uncomfortably. Dr. Zola goes on. "I was held for not very long, and was able to return to my laboratory in Switzerland where he had been taken. Under Hydra's care he would become our most valuable weapon."

"The best friend of Captain America didn't have anything to say about working for Hydra?"

"You underestimate me," Zola says with a chuckle. "What we needed was a tool, Mr. Pierce. A sharp, strong tool. With the support of the Soviets I had the funding and equipment necessary to create one. I created a machine that can pinpoint certain areas of the specimen's brain and use electric current to traumatize them. In essence, we are able to control his memory and his ability to feel emotion."

"You wiped his mind," Alex says, his voice far less commanding that he'd like it to be, coming out insubstantial.

"Yes, pieces of it," Zola nods. "However the effects are not completely permanent. There is no way to actually remove a person's memories, only to trick the mind into no longer wanting to recall them. A certain...shall we say broken spirit, is necessary."

"This is a little sadistic for my tastes, doc," Alex says frankly, and Zola shrugs again.

"Sadism is not our purpose. A stallion must be broken first, yes? Even still, our asset has been quite resistant. There are times, for example most often when he is first taken out of cryo, that his memories are jumbled and overwhelming, and he has no ability to push his emotions aside. He feels everything, and cannot understand it. And so we must, as you say, 'wipe him' again."

"I don't understand why this was necessary," Alex says.

Dr. Zhidkov clears his throat. "If I may, Sir. After the second world war Dr. Zola's team was able to create another serum, one that enhanced the asset's body and cognitive function. He has been very highly trained, and with each mission his abilities evolve."

"He's a super soldier, then."

"He is a super soldier who has no limits, and no boundaries, and no interest in anything beyond the mission assigned him, Alexander," says Zola.

"With thirty years of Hydra secrets locked up there somewhere."

"He knows only as much as he needs," Zhidkov offers.

"How does that work?" Alex asks. "There are rarely missions that stay on script. How can he be expected to function, carry on a conversation, command a team? If he has no concept of history then--"

"He is well schooled in history," Zola explains. "What we have taken from him is his personal history, his identity, memories of his life as James Barnes. He is able to make decisions but only those based on his mission directive. With your current situation in Europe, let us assume, for example, that the young prince has a school friend over for the night. Our asset would not feel a moral struggle about putting the child prince to death, but he would then be able to decide whether to see the other, unrelated child to safety or to leave him there to be found. He is able to tell the difference between hostiles and civilians without feeling anything for them. He can calculate."

Alex isn't happy and he's not bothering to hide his distaste. This man is a war hero.

Zola gestures to him. "Come, Mr. Pierce, let us step out of the way so that Dr. Zhidkov can wake him."

He follows Dr. Zola and his nurse out of the vault and into an observation room, where several monitors show different angles of the lab. The biggest is zoomed in close to the cryo chamber, Zhidkov and the two guards that have taken place behind him. Zhidkov crouches down to access a panel on the side of the cryo chamber, and a red light on the top begins to flash soundlessly.

It doesn't take as long as Alex would have thought. There's a loud buzz of sound for several minutes and the ice on the chamber window becomes a fog, and when it clears wide grey-blue eyes are open, hazy and confused and scared. Two hands--one flesh and blood and one metal--lift to touch the glass.

"His arm," Alex says.

"His arm was lost in the fall," Dr. Zola murmurs. "A brilliant Russian scientist named Anton Vanko created a prosthetic, and an organic technology that allowed his nervous system to, how you might say, attach. It is perhaps more sensitive than his actual arm, and he has better use of it."

Alex presses his mouth into a thin line and watches the cryo chamber open. The kid inside--and it's hard to think of him as anything but, World War II hero or not--is naked and strapped in at the chest and waist and shins. Zhidkov presses a button and the restraints release, and Barnes leaves the chamber in a lurch.

He's breathing hard and in raw whimpers, and his body is scarred all over. He's trembling so hard he can hardly move his legs. He tries to back away from Zhidkov and the guards and slams into a table, which falls with a deafening crash that scares him even more. He's soaking wet and his lips are pulled back to bare his teeth. As Zhidkov approaches he lets out a snarl and wraps his arms around his middle. Zhidkov says something to him in furious Russian and Barnes doesn't answer. Zhidkov hits him across the face and he goes down hard, where he rolls onto his side, says something in rapid Russian that gets louder and louder until he's just screaming, wordless and weak and anguished.

Alex rushes out of the observation room and back into the vault, his heart pounding and Zola calling after him. He shoves the guards out of the way, and Zhidkov too, and crouches down next to Barnes who's crying now, ghostly pale and weak as a kitten.

"Нет!" he says when Alex reaches for him.

"English," Zhidkov commands.

"No," Barnes corrects, his voice very hoarse. He can't get more than his upper body off the ground and he keeps trying, panting and sweating, body quaking, dry sobs spilling past his lips. "Don't, don't. You promised."

"It's all right," Alex tells him. Barnes lets out a feral growl when Alex's hand gets close again, but it's no more than that. Alex touches his shoulder, still freezing under his hand, and then his shaggy hair, which he pushes out of Barnes's face. Barnes isn't snarling anymore, or gritting his teeth. His lips are parted and his eyes are wide and full of ghosts.

"We need to wash the fluid off him, Mr. Secretary," says Zhidkov. "And raise his body temperature. He needs to rest."

Alex is angry, upset. "I'll do it."

"Sir, you do not have to--"

"I'll do it," he repeats.

He sits with Barnes a few moments longer, until the kid is calmer, and then he helps him up. Zhidkov has backed off, though he looks unhappy about it, and Zola has returned. One of the guards leads Alex through the closed door he saw earlier and into a small room with a toilet, a shower and a full sized bed. He lowers Barnes down onto the floor of the shower and turns the water on, and then strips down to his boxers and undershirt before joining him. Barnes lets Alex wash his body and hair, his teeth chattering the whole time, the water probably hotter than it should be.

He gets him dried off with the help of one of the other scientists, and then into bed. He removes his wet underwear and puts his pants and shirt back on while Barnes is hooked up to an IV and given several injections. He's conscious but barely, and Alex sits down on the edge of the mattress next to him, thinking of his father and what might have returned home from war if he had lived.

"I want him," Barnes murmurs, blinking up at Alex. "I want to see him. You promised."

"It's all right," Alex tells him. Barnes falls asleep moments later. Alex doesn't know how long he stays there, feeling more unsettled than he has in a very long time. When Zola comes in, he dismisses his nurse, who closes the door behind her as she leaves.

"Who is he talking about?" Alex asks. "Who does he want to see?"

"Captain Steven Rogers," Dr. Zola answers.

Alex isn't entirely surprised. "There's always been that rumor…"

"That they were lovers?" Zola asks. "It is not only a rumor. Men are most unfortunately usually weak of character, some more despicably so than others, even your Captain America. This is the only lasting request we have heard. It has been a constant each time he is revived this way."

"Isn't that enough of a risk to shut down this project?"

"Ah, it is an ever-improving situation. He no longer remembers who it is he's asking for, or why, and it is only ever during this small window between waking him and alteration. In time I believe there will be nothing left of it."

Alex is still for a long few moments, watching Barnes sleep, and then he finally tears his eyes away to face Zola. "I don't like it."

"Yes, I know," says Zola. "You are an idealistic person, Alexander. James Barnes was a good man."

Alex folds his hands loosely in his lap. "I prefer it when our involvement is leaking secrets and donating money, telling important lies."

"It all leads to the same thing, doesn't it? The end of lives, as necessary as it is, sometimes of good men."

"Of course. But it feels better when my hand isn't the one on the trigger," Alex says. He's quiet for a time again, and then he shakes his head. "He reminds me of my son."

"I thought he might," Zola says. "But he is not. Neither is he James Barnes. You are not looking at a man right now. There is no humanity left in him."

"He looked at me. He responded to me."

"Like a dog, yes? He has not reacted that way to anyone else. It will be to your benefit, I think. He is your weapon now, Mr. Secretary. Wield him as you will."

Zola leaves, and Alex watches Barnes sleep overnight.

In the morning, the asset is settled into the chair with Zola's machine attached, and Alex pulls up a seat next to him. Big grey eyes follow his every move. "I don't remember," the asset whispers. There's a tense, shocked silence from the guards and scientists in the lab. Alex can only assume the kid usually doesn't talk much when they do this.

"I know, son," Alex says, gripping the asset's metal shoulder. "It's all right. You're a good man. You're a servant of the people. You're helping us save the world."

"How?" he asks. When Alex was in his mid-twenties that was all he ever wanted to hear, but the asset doesn't seem to care. Alex wonders if it would matter if he'd said "country" instead of "world". Wonders if this poor kid has any idea what country he's actually from in the first place, if the red star painted on his arm means anything to him. He's asking because he wants Alex to keep talking.

"Freedom," Alex tells him. "You're going to help us restore our freedom."

The asset's eyebrows drawn together, as though confused. Alex squeezes flesh and blood arm, stands up and moved out the way. The asset accepts a guard into his mouth, and closes his eyes when the restraints snap around him, starting to tremble.

Alex stands back and watches him scream.

 

 

One week later he gets word that the problem monarch was addicted to drugs, that he lost his mind under the influence and killed his wife, two children and himself. The evidence is irrefutable. Among Alex's men, there are whispers that it was an assassination, pristinely executed, the work of a Russian ghost called the Winter Soldier.

After work that night, Alex goes home, puts down his things, kisses his wife hello and walks upstairs to his son's room. Andrew looks like his mother, dark eyes and dark hair, too much charisma for his own good. Above his bed is the picture of Alex's uncle Jed with Captain America and Bucky Barnes. Bucky was always Andrew's favorite as a little boy.

"Dad?" Andrew asks. He's at his desk, doing school work, but he follows his dad's line of sight to the picture. "You all right?"

"I was just thinking," Alex says. "I'd really like it if you didn't join the army when you turned eighteen."

Andrew lets out a surprised laugh. He'll be seventeen in three weeks. "Wasn't planning on it, but okay."

Alex walks up behind him and squeezes his shoulders. "Good man. What're you working on?"

"I've got a test tomorrow on World War II."

Alex smiles. "You know what, kiddo, I think I can help you with that."

 

_end._

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note to say that Ocean Park in Santa Monica really had a fake town installed around a war plane manufacturing factory during WWII. Pretty cool! And not something I made up so I can take no credit.


End file.
